Modeling in general is a very hard task but a very rewarding task. Being able to make a decent model no matter what shape or form really free's you away from many restrictions. Learning the techniques involved in modeling is an easy task, but finding one that is powerful and really gives you the control that you need to make your models can sometimes be quite hard.

I am writing this technique here on modeling with edit mesh in 3D Studio Max. I plan to cover all of the techniques and tricks required that will make your modeling steps a lot more quicker and easier. Rather than calling one feature in edit mesh a technique and limiting your style to just that alone, expand your horizons and use all of edit mesh since essentially that's what it's therefore.

Plenty of people I have met have sat down everyday and used one area of edit mesh over and over and over and never even thought about touching any other part of edit mesh, and then they get over protective about how others use their own technique which essentially is just another part of edit mesh, and brag that their technique is better. Neither are techniques!!
They're small elements of edit mesh and only do specific things, such as build face creates polygons, deviding edges devides, extruding faces extrudes, none are full blow modeling techniques, they're all just part of your tool set. Why just use a hammer to build a house when you can use a saw, a drill and other tools that will help get the job done less painfuly??

Keep in mind that the secret to success in 3dsmax and in life is not to be afraid to get into the guts of things, if you only ever skim the edges and assume there's a button to automatically create something for you you're definantly wrong and of course you won't get too far.
You really need to get right into the guts of your model and your scene and not be afraid to tear it apart, delete half of it and rebuild it from scratch, tear pieces away and form new ones, rip it to shreads to look insideand see what makes it tick. You need to be able to throw it away and make a new one from nothing if you wanted to, you can't just look around from a distance and hope it looks okay, this is especially true when it comes to real time models.

Picture this: You're looking for your keys you can't remember where you put them, could they have fallen out of your pocket when you were sitting down? or perhaps you put them in the fridge when you were putting away the shopping? Or left them in the door when you let yourself in? By walking into a room, putting your hands on your hips and looking around to see if you could see them, it's more than likely you won't be able to find them. You need to run around rampart and tear things apart, throw cussions on the ground and open things, close things, push things aside so you can see where they are, otherwise you will never find them! And I'm sure you could relate this to fixing cars too, but that's another thing.

Rule #1 - Never be afraid to get into the guts of your model.

Let's start by loading up the scene man.zip. This is the template scene we are going to start off from, make sure you have accompanying picture below